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Brazilian miner Vale will not chase big acquisitions – by Neil Hume (Financial Times – October 16, 2018)

https://www.ft.com/

Brazilian mining company Vale will deploy its cash wisely and “does not need” to chase big acquisitions because it has a big opportunity to grow organically in nickel.

Speaking at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said big dealmaking “adventures” were not on his agenda and any acquisitions would be small bolt on deals, probably in iron ore.

“We don’t need to do it given the potential of our nickel business,” he said. Although Vale is best known for its huge iron ore business, it is also the world’s biggest producer of nickel, a metal that will be needed in greater quantities as electric vehicles go mainstream.

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Aussie iron miners struggle to keep pace with Vale – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – October 16, 2018)

https://www.afr.com/

Australian iron ore miners have struggled to keep pace with Brazilian miner Vale, with BHP and Fortescue expected to follow in Rio Tinto’s footsteps by reporting softer exports of the steelmaking ingredient in recent months.

Rio confirmed on Tuesday that maintenance disruptions and the death of an employee had contributed to weaker than expected iron ore exports in the three months to September 30, and data from Port Hedland suggests its tenants (BHP, Fortescue, Roy Hill, Mineral Resources and Atlas Iron) exported six per cent less iron ore in the period compared to the previous quarter.

BHP is scheduled to confirm its iron ore exports on Wednesday morning, with RBC predicting its Australian division shipped 72 million tonnes in the three months to September 30.

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UPDATE 1-Brazil’s Vale third-quarter iron ore output hits all-time high (Reuters U.S. – October 15, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Iron ore output at Brazilian miner Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore producer, reached a record in the third quarter, boosted by the ramp-up of its S11D project in the Amazonian state of Pará.

In a securities filing on Monday, Vale said iron ore output jumped 10.3 percent from the year before to 104.945 million tonnes, while pellet output rose 8.7 percent to 13.878 million tonnes. Ore sales also touched a new high at 84.0 million tonnes.

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Vale touts collective future of mining – by Karen McKinley (Northern Ontario Business – October 5, 2018)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Company executive gives update on progress of technology upgrades focusing on Sudbury operation

The hive mentality is coming to mining, with the intention of making the industry more efficient, safer and ultimately sustainable. Vale Canada’s progress in that area was the subject of the season opening meeting of the Sudbury chapter of the Canadian Institute of Mining on Sept. 20.

Samantha Espley, Vale’s general manager of mines and mills, technical services department in Sudbury, gave the featured presentation on the company’s road map for its operations.

The physical and technological changes are part of a grander plan to change the behaviour of how different sections work in the mines, bringing them together to work as one large hub, all sharing data to make operational decisions in real time.

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Vale Is Close to Approving $1 Billion Copper Expansion – by R.T. Watson (Bloomberg News – October 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Vale SA, flush with cash from its booming iron-ore sales to China, is expected to approve a $1 billion expansion of a Brazilian copper mine later this month, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Building out the Salobo mine — known as the Salobo 3 project — would likely take about three years to complete and add about 50,000 tons to capacity at the mine in Para state, the person said, asking to remain anonymous because the talks are confidential. Salobo currently produces about 200,000 tons of copper a year.

The plan by the world’s largest iron-ore producer to invest in the new copper project comes as global copper stockpiles fall, while there has been growing consensus the copper market will be in deficit next year.

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Vale issues update on momentous year in Thompson mining history – by Ian Graham (Thompson Citizen – September 27, 2018)

https://www.thompsoncitizen.net/

Vale Manitoba Operations’ 2017-18 update entitled “A New Era” comes at a time when the mining company has ceased smelting and refining operations in Thompson after nearly 60 years of integrated nickel production.

The first Bessemer nickel matte was produced in the smelter on Sept. 10, 1960 and the first official production of nickel cathodes from the refinery occurred on March 25, 1961. The last anodes were poured in the smelter on July 8 of this year and the last nickel cathode was pulled on July 16. By that time, the new concentrate load-out facility was already complete, with the first shipment of concentrate having been loaded onto a truck bound for Sudbury June 24.

Over their lifetimes, the smelter and refinery produced nearly than 2.5 million tonnes of electro-nickel. “The decision in 2010 to decommission the smelter and refinery gave plenty of time for our people, the company and
the City of Thompson to prepare,” said a message from North Atlantic and Asia refineries director Ricus Grimbeek in the report.

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Vale: Embracing The Electric Vehicle Revolution (Seeking Alpha – September 24, 2018)

https://seekingalpha.com/

Vale’s (VALE) iron ore operations have been by far the main driver of the company’s performance. Because of this, the Base Metals division tends to fly under the radar, despite Vale being the world’s largest producer of nickel.

However, Vale has big plans for its nickel and copper divisions, and the Brazilian company has identified the rise of electric vehicle and renewables as an important growth driver, especially in nickel. The main focus of this article will be the nickel developments, but we will also touch on copper. Both should help the Base Metals division contribute meaningfully to earnings from 2020.

Base Metals’ contribution is still modest, but rising

Investors can be forgiven for paying more attention to the Ferrous Minerals division, which includes iron ore and related metals. This segment is by far the main contributor to Vale’s performance. The company’s latest quarterly publication, for Q2 2018, confirms the weight of Ferrous Minerals:

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Vale eyes expansion of Brazil iron ore mine to feed Chinese demand – by Manolo Serapio Jr and Muyu Xu (Reuters U.S. – september 19, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

DALIAN, China (Reuters) – Mining giant Vale is looking at expanding its flagship iron ore project in Brazil, a company official said, hoping to cash in on a growing appetite for higher-grade varieties of the commodity in its top market China.

China, the world’s biggest consumer of the steelmaking ingredient, has ramped up buying of higher-quality, less polluting grades of iron ore as it battles to clear its notoriously smoggy skies.

Peter Poppinga, executive director at Vale, said at an industry conference in China that the world’s largest iron ore miner was studying expanding its S11D project in the Amazonian state of Para, even though it was still being brought up to the planned capacity after it was inaugurated in December 2016.

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Copper Cliff Superstack dismantling will begin in 2020, Vale says (CBC News Sudbury – September 19, 2018)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

380-meter chimney has loomed over city since 1970

Mining giant Vale says that the Superstack will be standing on Sudbury’s skyline until 2020, at which point the iconic structure will be slowly taken apart.

Angie Robson, Vale’s manager of corporate affairs, told CBC News that with recent pushes by the company to reduce emissions, the stack has simply outlived its usefulness. “It’s simply too big for our needs, given the reduction in emission we’ve been able to achieve,” Robson said. “So it’s going to stay in service until 2020.”

The 380-metre high stack was built in 1970 to disperse sulphur gases and other byproducts of the smelting process away from the city. “It’s simply too big for our needs, given the reduction in emission we’ve been able to achieve,” Robson said. “So it’s going to stay in service until 2020.”

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New Voisey’s Bay royalty calculation agreed on – by Marleny Arnoldi (MiningWeekly.com – September 17, 2018)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

TSX-listed Altius Minerals and Nasdaq-listed Royal Gold have entered into an agreement with Vale Canada to settle litigation related to the calculation of the royalty in respect of all concentrates produced from the Voisey’s Bay mine, in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Voisey’s Bay 3% net smelter return royalty is directly owned by the Labrador Nickel Royalty partnership, of which Altius is a 10% owner and a subsidiary of Royal Gold is a 90% owner.

The parties agreed to a new method for calculating the royalty regarding concentrates processed at Vale’s Long Harbour processing plant, which will be effective for all Voisey’s Bay mine production after April 1 this year.

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RPT-Nickel producers eye Indonesia to plug into EV battery market – by Fergus Jensen (Reuters U.S. – September 16, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

JAKARTA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Several global metals producers have set their sights on Indonesia’s nickel reserves to tap an expected surge in demand for the metal for electric vehicle batteries.

Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd (SMM) said on Thursday that it and nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia are conducting a feasibility study to build a nickel processing project in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi. A spokesman for Vale said the plant would make an intermediate nickel and cobalt product that would then be processed into nickel sulphate for batteries.

Major nickel producers are taking a closer look at Indonesia whose large nickel laterite ore reserves are already prized for nickel pig iron used in stainless steel production.

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$1 billion later: Vale completes its Clean AER project: Superstack to be decommissioned as miner reduces emissions by 85% – by Arron Pickard (Sudbury Northern Life – September 14, 2018)

https://www.sudbury.com/

The largest single environmental investment in Greater Sudbury is now complete. Vale celebrated the completion of its $1-billion Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction project on Friday, achieving an 85-per-cent reduction in previous sulphur dioxide emissions and a 40-per-cent reduction in metal particulate emissions.

Dave Stefanuto, director of projects for Vale’s North Atlantic Operations, said the completion of the has been 10 years in the making, and was no small undertaking. This size and scope of the project was massive, considering the company continued to operate with no interruptions.

“We began in earnest in 2008, and broke ground in 2012, but the project has evolved over the years,” Stefanuto said. “We decided to move to a single furnace operation in 2013, which resulted in a greater reduction in emissions we had originally estimated.”

There are three core elements to the project: new converters in the smelter facility; the new wet gas cleaning plant, and; a new secondary baghouse facility.

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Vale celebrates completion of emissions reduction project – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – September 15, 2018)

 

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Scientist David Pearson still has a vivid memory of a “bad air day” when he was getting out of his car at Laurentian University in the early 1970s, prior to the Inco Superstack being built.

“I ran from my car to get in the building,” he recalled, during a press conference Friday at the Vale Copper Cliff Smelting Complex. “It was not a pleasant experience.” Friday’s event marked the end of the mining company’s six-year, $1-billion Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction project.

It involved the construction of two new converters, which have special hoods to capture sulphur-dioxide gas, and a new wet-gas cleaning plant that captures 85 per cent of the sulphur-dioxide emissions previously emitted by the Superstack.

As well, Clean AER introduced a baghouse/fan building that acts like a giant vacuum cleaner, reducing metals particulate emissions by 40 per cent, and a pair of new 450-foot stacks that will be more efficient to operate than the Superstack.

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NEWS RELEASE: Vale Celebrates Completion of $1 Billion Clean AER Project

Ricus Grimbeek, Chief Operating Officer of Vale’s North Atlantic Operations speaks at Vale’s Clean AER Project Completion Celebration.

Sudbury, ON, September 14, 2018 — Today Vale Canada Limited announced the completion of its CAD $1 billion Clean AER (Atmospheric Emission Reduction Project) with a celebration near its Smelter Complex in Sudbury, Ontario.

“The completion of our Clean AER Project is a historic milestone that demonstrates how far we have come as a company in reducing our environmental footprint,” said Ricus Grimbeek, Chief Operating Officer of Vale’s North Atlantic Base Metals Operations and Asian Refineries. “It is something that all of us at Vale and our local community can be very proud of.”

Vale’s Clean AER Project is the largest single environmental investment in Sudbury’s history, achieving an 85% reduction in previous sulphur dioxide emissions and a 40% reduction in metal particulate emissions.

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Vale to automate iron ore mine to improve safety and production – by JP Casey (Mining Technology – September 13, 2018)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

The world’s largest iron ore miner Vale plans to operate its Brucutu iron ore mine in Brazil with a fully autonomous fleet of vehicles next year, following a successful trial of driverless technology, to improve production and safety at the operation.

The trial involved the deployment of seven Caterpillar 793F CMD fully-autonomous trucks at the mine for a month, following six years of research and development.

The project cost $62m and the site saw a 26% increase in the volume of ore transported during the trial, results that the company’s ferrous planning and development director Lúcio Cavalli called ‘promising’.

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